"The world’s oceans reached their hottest level in recorded history in 2020, supercharging the extreme weather impacts of the climate emergency, scientists have reported."
"EPA has finalized a rule that leaves untouched an Obama-era requirement that new coal plants partially capture their carbon dioxide emissions — walking away from its proposal more than two years ago to scrap that mandate in favor of laxer standards."
"The company behind the controversial Line 5 pipeline under part of the Great Lakes this morning said it would defy a Michigan order to halt operations by May."
"The Trump administration has completed a review of plans to ease protections for a struggling bird species in seven states in the U.S. West, but there’s little time to put the relaxed rules for industry into action before President-elect Joe Biden takes office."
"When the full story of the 6 January storming of the US Capitol building is told, historians will have to make sense of what might seem an odd footnote. The two most prominent rightwing militia groups that participated in the mob onslaught on Congress – the Three Percenters, based in Idaho, and the Oath Keepers, based in Nevada – cut their teeth in obscure corners of the American west, where for close to a decade they have threatened violence against federal employees and institutions that steward the nation’s public lands."
"In October 2017, President Donald Trump’s critics were celebrating. They’d won their latest fight against the new administration’s industry-friendly environmental agenda, and were confident in racking up more victories. ...Fast forward to 2021, and the story of the Trump team’s legal scorecard is more complicated, showing a mixed record of success, failure, and unresolved cases."
"In the closing months of the Trump administration, energy companies stockpiled enough drilling permits for western public lands to keep pumping oil for years and undercut President-elect Joe Biden’s plans to curb new drilling because of climate change, according to public records and industry analysts."
"In its annual Energy and Carbon Summary, the oil company offers a bizarre account of how it’s going to help address climate change while increasing production."
"For the residents of Mead, Nebraska, the first sign of something amiss was the stench, the smell of something rotting. People reported eye and throat irritation and nosebleeds. Then colonies of bees started dying, birds and butterflies appeared disoriented and pet dogs grew ill, staggering about with dilated pupils."
"Judge Merrick Garland would bring an uncommon level of environmental law expertise to the Justice Department’s top spot if confirmed as attorney general in the incoming Biden administration."
Advertisement 
